Miles Davis - 'Live in Tokyo 1975'

This is Miles from the same Japanese tour that gave us the ‘Panagaea’ and ‘Agharta’ albums, and was recorded ten days before the concert that appeared on those records, but with different songs.  The music is a dark brew of funk, fusion, and some surprisingly exotic currents, thanks to wonderful work from Sonny Fortune on alto, soprano sax, and flute, working here alongside guitarist Pete Cosey, who provides plenty of the fuzzier, freakier moments of the set, as does keyboardist Reggie Lucas, Al Foster's drumming is wonderful, and Michael Henderson's bass will blow you away.  But as always, Miles is the star once he opens up his horn and steps into the darkness.

Live in Tokyo 1975' comes from a short time before Davis's retirement, at a point when the music was at its funkiest and angriest, when he would slap a wah-wah effect on any instrument in sight and no amount of fuzzy distortion was too much.  This is not recommended for the faint of heart.

This septet was well into the "deep African thing, a deep African-American groove, with a lot of emphasis on drums and rhythm" as Miles later described it, weaving earthy percussion and juiced-up rock into 80 minutes of primordial voodoo trance.  By this point he had the band running as a well-oiled machine, able to direct dynamic arrangements, segues and stop-on-a-dime changes all in the moment.  They spin out one dense churning groove after another, whether trading solos around loose structural frameworks or sometimes getting (again borrowing the Miles' words) "a lot of intricate shit … working off this one chord."  He picks and chooses spots to dart in with a simple trumpet line or the odd stray note, then punches at the organ as if trying to exorcise his osteoarthritis pain by sheer force of sound amid the haze of medication and drugs.

The ghost of Jimi Hendrix is alive and well in the wailing of Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas, while the drum/percussion team lays down a series of staggered rhythms.  There isn't really a set list so much as a contiguous series of song sketches to explore. "Maiysha" starts out cool and airy before turning into some kind of tropical-themed nightmare; "Ife" skips the modulating bass line of the studio version and explores the more abstract sections instead, blending light flute with menacing organ before giving everyone some free space to blow.

The Tokyo show is a close sibling to those abovementioned albums and ‘Dark Magus’, but of course each one has its own character.  To my ears, ‘Live in Tokyo 1975’ is a little more tight and lean, not quite as off-the-wall crazy as ‘Pangaea’ or as loud and crowded as ‘Dark Magus’, though not terribly far off either, and a most welcomed release for those of us who find this phase endlessly fresh all these decades later. 

Along with Miles’ trumpet and organ are:
Sonny Fortune - alto & soprano sax, flute
Pete Cosey - guitar, synthesizer, kalimba, table percussion
Reggie Lucas - guitar
Michael Henderson - bass
James “Mtume” Heath (aka Foreman) - percussion, rhythm box
Al Foster - drums

CD 1:

1. Prelude & Funk
2. Maiysha
3. Ife

CD 2:

1. Mtume
2. Turnaround Phrase
3. Tune In 5
4. Untitled



For the Freeload, tell us what you were doing in 1975.